THE BINARY SUCCESSION    
David Annandale	 

	The ramparts of the Stellarum Vigil were among the highest points of the Imperial Palace. The tower pierced the grey-brown smog cover that choked the Terran sky. Here, unaugmented humans needed rebreathers in the thin air. Here, the atmospheric barrier to the stars faded. At night, they shone with a solemn purity of silver.
	But one of the glints was a holy red.
	Here, the lost Forge World Principal could be seen and mourned.
	The exiles gathered often, crimson-robed figures lining the ramparts. They were still except for the slow twitches of mechadendrites and the hovering of servo-skulls. From the moment Mars appeared on the horizon until the moment it set, there was nothing except the silent observance. All duties were suspended. No consideration could supersede the witnessing of the sacred world.
	Though the tech-priests were close to motionless, they were still active. Data flashed through the noosphere: readings of albedo, recitations of mass and orbit, psalms marking the planet’s traversal of the constellations. No words were spoken, there was no communication outside the realm of the mathematical, but even data could weep.
	Ambassador Vethorel joined in the ritual every night. She watched the arc of the Red Planet, and felt the same agony as her fellow Mechanicum adepts. Mars was so clear, its light so sharp, that it struck her like a dagger. The visibility was a reminder of how distant Mars had become.
	Though Vethorel had laboured in the name of the Mechanicum for years on Terra – long before the schism and her being named as Kane’s ambassador – the sight was a tenuous link to the home world. She always knew that when her work was done, she might return there.
	Now it was unattainable. It was held by traitorous hands. Mars had fallen, and the loyalists of the Mechanicum did not have the strength to reclaim it. They could only bear witness to its passage through the heavens.
	Grief. Pain. Experiences that were an unwelcome surprise for many of the tech-priests on the wall. No matter how much of the organic they had sacrificed, they were discovering that they could not so easily leave spiritual agony behind. Vethorel was perhaps fortunate in that she had never expected such immunity for herself. She was human, and she was a daughter of Mars, and she saw no contradiction in those states. The Mechanicum was paradoxical at its core. Fidelity to science meant the worship of the Omnissiah – the Machine and the God, an indivisible phenomenon. The same was true of Vethorel’s devotion to the Imperium and to the Mechanicum, to the preservation of the human and the glory of artifice.
	There were other currents in the silence of the ritual. Other emotions linked to the loss, as pointed as grief, but more immediately dangerous. Frustration, bitterness, doubt, suspicion. From every rise and set of the home world, they grew. Acidic, cancerous, they were something that she had to confront. Vethorel’s concern was that she would be no more able to contain these recriminations than she could retake Mars single-handedly.
	It would, she reflected, be easier if Mars had been conquered by a xenos force. Instead, it needed to be retaken because the Mechanicum itself was sundered, and the split found its symbolic political embodiment in the Binary Succession.
	Even the term itself was fraught. Kelbor-Hal was not dead. He still called himself Fabricator General, but his authority was no longer recognised by Terra. Since Kelbor-Hal’s demonstration of allegiance to Horus, the Council had elevated Zagreus Kane to the role instead.
	And so, now, there were two.
	The one who ruled Mars was declared false. The one recognised by Terra was in exile from his home world.
	The soul of the Mechanicum was in torment. While the higher orders of the priesthood found the choice to be a simple one, too many of the lesser adepts did not know which way to turn, and Kane’s position was precarious enough. Vethorel had long thought about how to deal with what might be coming, since the loyalist exodus from the Red Planet had begun, in fact. The Binary Succession was untenable. It was an equation that demanded resolution.
	Left unresolved, it would generate increasingly chaotic code, and violent action.
	Accessing memory record A-E3445. Designation: Encounter Primus.
	Begin playback.
	The summons had brought her to the lower levels of the Crucible factory complex, below the foundry that produced macro-cannons for the Palace defences. The walls vibrated with the industrial churn. They barely muffled the endless boom and clang, as if immense hammers struck anvils as big as mountains. The run-off of molten metal fell in hissing cataracts from the levels above, and ran in gutters down the sides of the space. Half-burned servitors directed the outflow at lock stations, and the glowing rivers ran into waste tunnels heading still further underground.
	The chamber could not have been more anonymous or forgotten. Vethorel assumed this was why it had been chosen. What was discussed here would have no witnesses beyond the two of them.
	The Fabricator General appeared before her, emerging from a large access tunnel opposite. She gazed at him, and saw the full potential of transformation.
	She had first met Kane here on Terra, two years before the schism. He had been like her then, primarily human in appearance. Now he was a hunched machine, his four-limbed thorax inserted into a tank-like chassis.
	It might have been as though he viewed the fall of Mars as the direct result of the fragility of flesh, and this was both his atonement and his rearmament. Vethorel felt her soul tremble before the sublime. Her mortal form seemed a sad vanity in comparison, and she wondered how anyone could doubt that Kane was the true Fabricator General. His very being gave voice to the will of the Omnissiah.
	‘Your work on the Throneworld is known to me, adept,’ Kane’s voice-box grated. His human lips, sealed forever by iron, did not move.
	Vethorel bowed her head in gratitude.
	‘You have a memory implant,’ he added, simply. It was not a question.
	‘I do.’
	‘Then your future recollection of this exchange will be perfect. You have performed effectively as liaison between my forges and political concerns. I need you now for a new task, as ambassador of the Mechanicum to the Council of Terra.’
	Vethorel bowed her head again at the honour. Any greater display would have been inefficient, though wonderment and the determination to be found worthy surged through her organic circuits. ‘You do not seek to liaise with them yourself?’ she queried.
	‘The gravitational pull of the Council is immense. I cannot afford to be in its grip. It will consume time I do not have. You have a further advantage – your appearance is primarily human. This matters to the Council. They do not trust the machinic. As ambassador, you will be well placed to bridge the two solitudes.’
	‘I will be that bridge,’ Vethorel vowed. ‘I will be your voice in all things.’
	‘The voice of the Mechanicum. My presence will be minimal. The authority must be yours. We will consult when necessary, and–’
	End playback.
	Advance to record A-E3500. Designation: Tactical Approval.
	Begin playback.
	The same cavern. A week ago. Vethorel had grown into her role. She saw more clearly what needed to be done for the good of the Mechanicum and the Imperium together. She stood before Kane once more, taller with the strength of her new authority and yet crushed by greater responsibility.
	‘The divisions in the priesthood are severe,’ she admitted.
	‘On Terra, as elsewhere. The Binary Succession frustrates all my efforts to unify the forge worlds. The schism threatens to grow.’
	‘Do you agree, then, to my proposal? Better to bring the crisis to a head, rather than attempt to delay it. We must resolve the equation.’
	The Fabricator General marked his assent with a blurt of code. ‘We will.’
	End playback.
	Mars set. The red light of home vanished. The ceremony ended.
	The tech-priests departed – always in silence, wrapped in their own painful marking of the passage, returning now to their duties on Terra. No words were exchanged, no visible sign of communion except for the simple fact of having been present.
	So it had been every night since the ritual had begun.
	But tonight there was a difference. Two of the priests did not leave. They stayed at their posts before the crenellations, a few yards to the left and right of Vethorel, waiting for the others to go.
	Then they approached her.
	‘Magos Gerantor, Magos Passax,’ she greeted them, using the speech of the flesh. She felt there would be nuances to this conversation that would be beyond the more blunt absolutes of binaric.
	Gerantor bowed. ‘Ambassador Vethorel. We have questions. You must provide answers.’
	So much for nuance, Vethorel thought.
	Both priests were tall. Gerantor was thin, but Passax’s build was so massive that she made him look skeletal, his slender form the very embodiment of binarism. The left side was still organic, though webbed by a dense network of electoos, while the right was entirely machine, with coiling clusters of mechadendrites sprouting from the shoulder and flank. The split occurred along a perfectly straight line down the precise centre of his features. The width of the metal half of his skull was a few millimetres less than the organic side, making it seem as if the flesh had been scraped away to reveal iron beneath.
	Passax no longer had any visible traces of humanity at all. She moved on six, multijointed, insectoid legs. Her frame was powerfully armoured, and tools at the end of her omniflex fingers doubled easily as weapons. Her faceplate still bore the scars of las-burns acquired during the fighting on Mars.
	‘Many representatives of the Collegia Titanica have come to Terra,’ she said. Where Gerantor’s voice was still recognisable as human from word to word, hers was a deep, grating, mechanical monotone – like large stones rattling in a metal drum.
	‘You’ve heard, then,’ Vethorel replied. ‘Yes, they have.’
	‘Is this preparatory to a Martian campaign, ambassador?’ Gerantor demanded.
	‘No.’ All her weariness from the recent sessions of the Council found expression in that single word. She gestured away over the parapet. ‘They are present as part of the redeployment of the Titan Legions to defend the north-east of the Segmentum Solar.’
	‘Disappointing. Did you not press our case, ambassador?’
	Gerantor’s repetition of Vethorel’s title turned it into an expression of doubt and annoyance – one that she chose to ignore. ‘I have made the needs of the Mechanicum very clear,’ she replied. ‘I continue to do so.’
	‘What has that accomplished? Every cycle, more labour is expected of us in the service of the Imperium’s war effort. What have we received in return?’
	‘We are not the slaves of the Emperor,’ Passax added.
	Vethorel nodded slowly. ‘Indeed, we are not.’
	‘Then why are we treated as such?’ Gerantor asked quickly.
	Passax jumped in again before Vethorel could respond. ‘There is also the matter of our faith. It is not respected.’
	The ambassador took a breath. ‘I would–’
	‘The Terran secularists do not conceal their contempt for us,’ Gerantor interrupted her. ‘Where is the equality promised by the treaty?’
	This. This is the way that wars can be lost, Vethorel thought. Treat an ally in such a way that they come to understand the position of the enemy...
	However, she did not let her concern show.
	‘All of what you say is true,’ she said, plainly.
	Gerantor bristled. ‘And the princeps are not here to reconquer Mars.’
	‘They are not.’ Vethorel was relieved that he did not appear to grasp the broader implications of the redeployment; what the presence of so many princeps on Terra meant, or what their absence elsewhere would entail. ‘Rest assured, your grievances are mine and those of the Fabricator General too. Matters will improve.’
	‘How?’ growled Passax.
	‘The next session of the Council will be a critical one.’
	With that, Vethorel left. She would say no more, and nothing she could say would change the fact that the breaking point had already been reached. At least neither of the magi had gone further than express frustration.
	For now.
	Access memory recording A-E3501. Designation: Recognition of the Suboptimal.
	Begin playback.
	It was in the space below the foundry, surrounded by the rumble of machinery, that they had put an entirely different kind of machine in motion. Vethorel had told Kane what she had in mind. When she had finished, he seemed to consider it for a long while.
	‘And you are prepared for the likely repercussions, ambassador?’ he asked, finally.
	‘I am. I perceive the action’s necessity. This is how we will make the Council listen. But the greatest burden will not be mine.’
	The Fabricator General’s faceted eyes gazed past her into the Mechanicum’s rapidly darkening future. ‘Acknowledged. All other actions have failed. Sacred Mars remains beyond our reach – and so, then, does the unity we would require to reclaim it.’ He paused again, his logic circuits running the projections. ‘Confirmed. We have no other choice.’
	‘No. We do not.’
	End playback.
	Vethorel approached the doors to the Great Chamber of the Council of Terra. She was walking down the centre of a hall wide and high enough for a Warhound to pass.
	Delegations lined the sides, calling out to Council members. She was used to ignoring them. The concerns of the Mechanicum were so far removed from those of the citizens of Terra that she was, at most, a thing of curiosity.
	On her right, a few hundred yards from the doors, she saw a different group. They stood out in their disciplined military posture and starched uniforms, the heraldry of their noble orders emblazoned proudly on polished ceremonial gorgets. They were the representatives of the Collegia Titanica, the Titan Legions – commanders of the God-Machines that could level enemy fortresses and put an army to flight.
	Many of them had their eyes on her. Vethorel slowed her steps and moved across the central aisle.
	‘Honoured princeps,’ she called out. ‘I wish we met under better circumstances.’
	Two stepped forwards from the rest. She knew them both – Bassanius of Ignatum, and Tevera of Agravaides. The Fire Wasps and the Battle Scourges were noble legios of the Forge World Principal, though they had been off-planet when the Death of Innocence had swept over the plains.
	Bassanius nodded respectfully. ‘I wish we were meeting on Mars, not Terra, Ambassador Vethorel.’
	‘As do I.’
	‘As do we all…’ wheezed Tevera. The princeps had lost the use of her limbs many years earlier. Her wasted frame was supported by an exoskeleton, and her voice was strained. Unlike Bassanius, she would command her Titan from an amniotic tank, linked to the manifold. She paused regularly, while her exoskeleton forced her lungs to breathe. ‘We are here to make ourselves heard… The timing and manner of this redeployment… is unacceptable.’
	There was a murmur of agreement from the others, but Tevera already knew that she had their support.
	‘This is a conflict between the primarchs… and the Legiones Astartes–’
	Vethorel cut her short. ‘A conflict that we have all become part of. Or do you think neutrality is somehow possible?’
	‘We understand the nature of the threat,’ said Bassanius. ‘We understand that the Segmentum Solar must be defended, but what of the forge worlds?’
	Tevera took another pained breath. ‘They are being abandoned to the traitor, without our engines… to guard them. These are hard sacrifices to make.’
	‘The hardest of all,’ Vethorel conceded.
	Bassanius straightened. ‘And who speaks to us? Who speaks for us? What is the chain of command? For that matter, what is the chain of accountability? These are the concerns of the War Council, of the Emperor and his loyal sons. By what authority do these bureaucratic “High Lords” command us?’
	‘By the authority of necessity. But I understand – and the Collegia Titanica does have a voice on the Council. The Mechanicum has a voice. Mine.’
	‘Are you heard?’
	Vethorel faltered. There was no point pretending the political situation was better than it was. ‘Not well enough,’ she muttered.
	‘This must change…’ said Tevera.
	‘Yes. Yes, it must.’
	When they realised that Vethorel would say no more, Bassanius gave her another curt nod. The other Titan commanders watched her closely, unwilling to press any further. It was a provisional truce, making her feel the uncertainty of her position even more acutely, and that of Fabricator General Kane.
	She walked on, passing through the doors and into the Great Chamber, and entered a political theatre where the tiered seating was as much a stage as the central dais. Ten thousand lord-governors, nobles, military officers, administrators and departmental functionaries could meet here at one time, seated according to their perceived status in the hierarchy of the Imperium. 
	Vethorel had yet to see the Chamber at capacity, though the crisis was filling more and more of the tiers every day.
	She imagined the cacophony of a full Chamber. It would, she thought, be the worthy accompaniment to the total institutional paralysis that could so easily occur if all of those voices were truly meant to be heard.
	The voices were not heard. In the end, they might as well have been the rolling surf on a bureaucratic ocean. The few voices that actually counted were those of the High Lords, seated in the central rings of the Chamber. At their centre was the grand debating table, headed by the throne of the First Lord of Terra.
	Malcador the Sigillite.
	He was there, looking down upon the others with his cold, unreadable gaze.
	As Vethorel took her appointed place in the third tier, she reflected upon the current political stalemate. She understood that a campaign to retake Mars was not possible at this stage, but the framing of the decision was important. The many slights against Mechanicum loyalists and this cavalier disregard for the concerns of the Collegia Titanica were a formula for new disaster. Would they spell the end of the Council, just over a decade after its formation?
	So today she would speak, and she would make her voice heard.
	Her opportunity came quickly. Harr Rantal, the Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites, raised his concern over the sudden influx of Collegia Titanica officers in the Imperial Palace. Broad of shoulder and of voice, he spoke with enormous assurance of command. His influence – as measured by the power of the arbitrators to enforce Imperial Law – was great, but he carried himself as if he truly believed that he was only a short step below the primarchs themselves.
	‘These honourable men and women are here at the Council’s directive, true enough. But who they are specifically answerable to in these circumstances is unclear, and there have been some jurisdictional clashes.’
	Vethorel jumped in the moment Rantal took a breath, as if the Grand Marshal had already made his point and was not about to propose something else.
	‘I cannot agree more with Marshal Rantal,’ she announced as she rose from her seat. ‘This is just one of the several issues related to Mars that confront the Council, issues I have brought before the learned lords many times. As a result of the war, we are, I believe, faced with the problem that the Treaty of Olympus is both still in force and under attack. The promises it embodies must be kept. The Mechanicum and the Imperium are a partnership. Mars is not a vassal of Terra. With regards to the noble Titan Legions, I am sure the Council feels that clarity and respect are necessary, particularly in these fraught times. Therefore…’
	As she spoke, a part of Vethorel pulled back and observed her performance. She was dismayed at how quickly she had acclimatised to the political atmosphere she now breathed. She spoke a language of oblique reference, veiled jabs and shifting nuance. It was as far from machinic clarity as she had ever been forced to stray. There was shame in this dialogue, even as it was undeniably necessary to grease the wheels of the political engine.
	‘Therefore, I propose, for as long as hostilities with the renegade Warmaster continue, the provisional formation of an Adeptus Mechanicus.’
	The lords of the Council looked at her in silence. Their quiet rippled outwards to the rest of the Chamber, as if the words “Adeptus Mechanicus” were a sorcerous incantation, robbing those who heard them of breath.
	Malcador’s gaze sharpened. The expression on his aged face shifted minutely, and Vethorel thought she might even detect a glimmer of surprise in the Sigillite.
	Simion Pentasian, Master of the Administratum, was the first to speak. ‘What purpose would this serve, Ambassador Vethorel?’ He was a compact, wizened man. His skull looked pinched, his frown constant. His was the physiognomy of concentration so precise that it made no distinction between the important and the trivial, viewing them as an unbreakable continuum. He treated any neglected detail as a personal affront.
	‘The purpose, my lord, would be to grant the priesthood an official voice in matters concerning the future of the Imperium. The children of Mars were always intended to remain autonomous, under the terms of the Treaty. Since the loss of the Forge World Principal, this fact is no longer being considered.’
	Rantal sneered. ‘And who would be the master of this new Adeptus?’
	‘Fabricator General Kane is the natural choice,’ Vethorel replied, ‘even though it would make great demands of his time and attention. As I said, the measure is a provisional one–’
	Pentasian did not let her finish. ‘This Council knows all too well how much weight to place on the word provisional,’ he said, looking around at his fellow High Lords with all the contempt usually reserved for trespassers. ‘Provisional is merely the way of getting others to accept now what will soon be permanent.’
	‘I agree,’ Rantal added with a knowing, theatrical nod. ‘This is a power grab, and a clumsy one at that. You cannot retain autonomy while claiming elevation to an Adeptus, or we would have a body represented on this Council that is not answerable to it – a body of already questionable loyalty.’
	Vethorel stiffened. ‘I will not permit–’
	‘You will not permit what?’ Rantal rose to his feet, the better to perform his indignation. ‘You will not permit the rest of us to have reasonable doubts about the Mechanicum and all its works? Has Mars not had a civil war of its own? And is it not currently in the hands of traitors? Has none of its unrest travelled with the exiles to Terra? Your priesthood is at war with itself, ambassador. Is your proposal really meant to inspire our confidence in it once more?’
	The gathering rumble in the tiers was the answer to the Marshal’s questions. Isolated shouts grew into an angry chorus. Rantal rode the wave expertly.
	‘And after the “Adeptus Mechanicus”, what is next? Will others seek the same status, giving the Fabricator General allies on the Council? Is this conquest by political means?’
	‘This is ridiculous,’ Vethorel sighed.
	Pentasian seized upon the words, keen to hijack the debate to his own ends. ‘What is ridiculous is the proliferation of the Adepta.’ He kept his seat and leaned forwards. Somehow, the motion seemed to project his frown across the Chamber, even to the highest tiers. ‘Each new Adeptus lessens the very meaning of the word. Are we to flood the Council with voices, until not one can be heard over the clamour, and nothing can ever be accomplished?’
	He did not look at Rantal, though his meaning was obvious. The foundation of the Adeptus Arbites was still recent history, and the Adeptus Terra had opposed the motion from the beginning. Vethorel was surprised to hear her earlier concerns echoed by one of the High Lords, no less, but she knew that this session of the Council was already lost to her.
	Pentasian shook his head, reclining once more. The Master of the Administratum was not well liked. He was not a charismatic speaker. He was, for the other lords of the Council, a man whose purpose in life appeared to be to explain why nothing could be done, and everything was impossible. That he managed to keep the monstrous organism that was the Administratum functioning at all was a feat bordering on the miraculous.
	‘No,’ he murmured. ‘No. The ambassador’s proposal is without merit.’
	Simion Pentasian was always expected to be obstreperous, but today his objections were welcomed. He and Rantal had captured the mood of the Council.
	The rest of the debate was a formality.
	Vethorel went through the motions of defending the proposal, but her mind had already moved on from the present engagement. Her gambit had stalled, and that in itself would bring about certain consequences.
	The session ended in denunciation and uproar. When Vethorel left the Chamber, the roar of the surf had become angry, like waves in a storm crashing hard against the rocks. Her voice had been heard today, and it had been rejected with violence.
	Access memory recording A-E5502. Designation: Acceptable Sacrifice.
	Begin playback.
	Vethorel stood before Kane once more, in her recorded memory. The thunder of the foundry machines was unending.
	‘And what will we do when the proposal is rejected?’ he asked her.
	She gazed at the fall of molten metal. She thought about the destructive aspect of creation. She knew that she might well be part of what was destroyed in that process. ‘Then we will do what we must.’
	‘They will come for you.’
	Incandescence hissed and flowed. The heat was intense.
	‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But the mechanism is what is important. Not the hand that operates it.’
	The messaging servitor came for Vethorel on the spiral staircase above the Great Chamber. It halted two steps above her and held out a data-slate.
	The message was from Malcador. The Sigillite wished to see her. The servitor pivoted on its mechanical legs and climbed back up, and Vethorel followed.
	Two landings further on, the servitor opened a wrought-iron door and led Vethorel onto a long, narrow balcony. Columns lined the parapet, casting deep shadows. Malcador stood halfway down, hooded, leaning on his staff and looking out over the lower ramparts of the Imperial Palace.
	The messenger stopped dead beside the Sigillite. Malcador waved a hand and the servitor departed, heading down towards the far exit.
	Malcador did not look at Vethorel. ‘Do you and Zagreus Kane know what you’re doing?’
	‘We do, Lord Regent.’
	‘So your proposal was not the initial bargaining position, with a different goal in mind?’
	‘No, Lord Regent.’
	‘Then this is what you truly intend.’
	‘It is.’
	‘And you’ll continue to fight for it.’
	‘I will.’
	Coming from anyone else, the Sigillite’s questions would have seemed redundant or patronising. Instead, the quiet, grim solemnity of his tone turned them into a ritual. He was not raising doubts about Vethorel’s intelligence – the aged psyker was well acquainted with the cold minds of the augmented, and he was testing her commitment. Accordingly, Vethorel’s answers felt like oaths.
	Malcador turned to face her, then.
	‘Your determination does you credit, ambassador,’ he said.
	‘But my intent does not?’
	‘Ahh, but I did not say that…’
	‘Is that an evasion, Lord Regent?’
	‘It is not.’ He hesitated. ‘I am... I am examining the possible consequences both of rejecting and accepting the creation of the Adeptus Mechanicus. I know you are too.’
	‘I am convinced that not forming an Adeptus will lead to catastrophe. It is the only way of resolving the Binary Succession. The Mechanicum cannot have two leaders.’
	Malcador nodded. ‘There is more that I hope you understand. You did not achieve your ends in the Council today, but your words themselves were a statement. Events are unfolding now because of that. You may believe that Master Pentasian and Grand Marshal Rantal were reacting from their own petty considerations and, true enough, pure political instinct may have been part of it.’ His gaze turned cold. ‘But let me assure you, Ambassador Vethorel, the High Lords are not only political animals. They believe in the Imperium. They would lay down their lives in its defence. Their objections to the Adeptus Mechanicus are important. They call this a power grab – that is what the Council perceives as a real possibility, a real threat. Whatever your motivations, the creation of this Adeptus would greatly alter the balance of power on Terra.’
	‘The power of the Mechanicum, even divided, exists whether the Adeptus does or not,’ she replied, choosing her words carefully. ‘There is more than one possible solution to the equation. The Council cannot afford the wrong sort of Martian unity.’
	The Sigillite gave Vethorel a long look, gripping his staff tightly. ‘I should wonder what you mean by that,’ he said, letting the words hang for a moment. Then he softened his tone just a little. ‘There is power, too, in what you unleashed today.’
	‘The Fabricator General and I never believed that things would be otherwise.’
	‘I thought so. I am glad to know I was right. But we must all deal with those consequences now – the situation with the Mechanicum and Mars is already uncertain. Your loyalties were questioned before. Now they are subject to outright suspicion.’
	There would be plenty of suspicion on all sides in the days ahead, she knew. She also knew that Kane would be at the centre of that particular storm. ‘All of what you say is true, Lord Regent. But this motion must be approved.’
	‘Perhaps. May we all make the correct decisions, then. I bid you well, Ambassador Vethorel.’
	He trudged away, his frail figure disappearing into the shadows between the columns.
	Vethorel stood a while longer in quiet contemplation. Yes, she had known how their actions would appear to the High Lords. She also knew how they would likely appear to the other loyalists within the Mechanicum. She had always expected the first step to be unsuccessful but, despite her realism, she found herself wishing that she had made even a hint of progress with the Council.
	Then Zagreus Kane would have something to use in the trials that awaited him, even if that was nothing more concrete than Vethorel’s own, flawed hope.
	When the hour approached for Mars to rise, Vethorel arrived on the Stellarum Vigil ramparts early. She stood at the centre of their span, her back to the parapet, facing the robed celebrants. They would have questions. They would have accusations. She wanted them to know that she was here to answer them.
	All eyes, organic and bionic, were upon her. The moment of the ritual drew closer, when silence must prevail, but silence was there already. The adepts of the Mechanicum filled the ramparts, their ambassador at their centre, and no word was spoken. There was not even the briefest burst of binaric. There was no communication at all.
	Vethorel glanced about, nervously. The unsaid, the surmised, these things built tension.
	She waited until the last second before she resigned herself and turned to watch the sky. Looking up and down the ramparts she saw, at some distance to her right, that a number of Titan princeps and moderati had joined the observance for the first time.
	Mars rose, and the ceremony began. The shared act of contemplation and mourning took place as it had countless times before. Vethorel gazed up at the red glimmer on the horizon. She grieved for her sacred home world, but her attention was drifting.
	Tonight, the sight of Mars was less a reminder of what had been lost, and more a sign of the conflicts that the schism had engendered here on Terra. All worshippers of the Omnissiah on the Stellarum Vigil were exiles because they were loyal to the Emperor as well as to Mars. Taymon Verticorda himself had shown that there was no contradiction between those loyalties. They were the same, because the Emperor was the living avatar of the Omnissiah...
	Time passed. Mars reached its zenith, then began its descent. The closer the moment came to the extinguishing of the red spark, the more smothering the silence became.
	The end of the ritual was the signal, as Mars vanished behind the jagged horizon of Palace spires, and the silence at last was broken. Vethorel lowered her eyes, and found Magos Gerantor standing beside her.
	‘What have you done?’ he snapped. ‘Your actions have undermined the Treaty of Olympus. The word of the Omnissiah has been disobeyed.’
	‘You are wrong to think so little of my faith, magos.’
	‘How can we think otherwise? You propose to formalise Terra’s control of the priesthood. We will be slaves, and Mars will be forgotten.’
	‘That is not the purpose of what I have proposed. This is only intended to…’ Vethorel trailed off. She realised, then, that the tech-priests would not believe the situation was temporary any more than Rantal and Pentasian did. Instead, she returned to the real issue. ‘An Adeptus Mechanicus would be in a position to force the Council to listen to Martian concerns.’
	‘As much as it listens to you now.’
	‘The Council looks at us and perceives refugees. The accuracy of that impression is irrelevant. What matters is–’
	Vethorel looked beyond Gerantor to see the crowd that had grown around them. Glowing multi-optics narrowed their focus on her. There was metallic shifting from all sides.
	She was acutely aware that her lack of visible machinic alterations counted against her. To those who believed that she had spoken against the Treaty and the Mechanicum today, the implication of her very human appearance was gaining far too much significance.
	‘For the sake of Mars and the Imperium,’ she continued, ‘the Adeptus Mechanicus must become a reality. In the name of the Omnissiah, I pray that all of you will see the necessity of this.’
	Gerantor put out his machine arm to grip her robe. ‘We will be slaves.’
	‘Unhand me, Magos Gerantor,’ she sighed. ‘If you wish to turn this into a circular argument then you may do so without my help. It is clear that nothing I say will convince you that my actions are the full expression of my devotion to the Omnissiah, and the will of the Fabricator General of the Mechanicum. Believe otherwise if you will, but the Adeptus Mechanicus must become a reality, and I will fight to see it happen.’
	She moved away, and the other tech-priests parted to let her pass. Murmurs of Gothic and hissing bursts of binaric cant surrounded her. She was done with the debate for now, but it was alive and burning in the crowd. Good. The matter was out in the open, and contentious. By the next session of the Council, her popular support might well have grown.
	She was midway across the width of the parapet when Gerantor replied.
	‘No.’
	Vethorel turned. He stood where she had left him, staring at the ambassador down the length of the widening gap in the crowd. ‘What do you mean, no? You forget yourself, magos.’
	‘No. We cannot let you dishonour the Treaty. We cannot let you crush the Mechanicum, and the independence of Mars.’
	She sensed movement at her rear. She whirled round to find Passax blocking her path. The magos’ metal limbs reached for Vethorel, saws spinning and plasma cutters ignited. Vethorel jerked back, but one of the mechadendrites wrapped around her left arm and held tight.
	They will come for you.
	I know.
	This was not the same treachery that had torn Mars apart. Gerantor and Passax believed – truly, truly believed – that Vethorel was the traitor, that she was the heretic.
	Despair gripped her heart, but she could not give in. She carried no weapon, but the ambassador was not helpless; she channelled the energy coursing through her hidden, subcutaneous electoos, and in a fraction of a second, a massive charge of biological and mechanical electricity built in her captive arm.
	She sent the burst through Passax’s mechadendrite. It overloaded the circuits, and the limb spasmed. Vethorel pulled free, jumping back.
	There was rapid movement to her left and right. Alarm spread through the gathered adepts. Some began to move to her aid, but many others retreated, confused about where the truth of Martian loyalty lay. Gerantor remained where he was, a witness at the execution he had arranged, content to let other hands perform the deed.
	A gallant adept grabbed Passax’s right arm. The magos’ telescoping digits twisted back and slashed at Vethorel’s would-be saviour with the plasma torch, driving him back.
	Before anyone else could reach the ambassador, there was a concerted push from within the crowd, and three electro-priests rushed her. They had thrown back their robes, in full combat fury. Their faces were twisted into masks of hatred.
	They had not come to the Stellarum Vigil to mourn, but to murder.
	They brandished electroleech staves. Vethorel ducked and threw herself to the side, passing under one priest’s swing, but she caught a glancing blow from the sparking capacitor of another. Though the contact was brief, she felt a sudden drain of her motive force.
	Her limbs became sluggish. Her body twitched. Her electoos began to go dark, diminishing her awareness and control of her being. She stumbled into a crowd that now recoiled from her.
	The attack of the electro-priests was too ferocious and coordinated. For the other adepts, this poor, defenceless ambassador’s death now seemed a certainty, and they would not throw themselves into a conflict that was already decided. If she was doomed to fall, then surely the Omnissiah had found her wanting, and her heresy was all but confirmed?
	The attack had machinic precision. Vethorel moved now with the weakness of unaugmented flesh, and the electro-priests surrounded her, crying out in their exquisite mania.
	A stave’s capacitor caught her in the ribs, spreading a cold darkness through her torso and into her extremities. It felt like shutting down, like she was being disconnected in the most primal, absolute fashion.
	She fell to her knees. She barely managed to raise her head, and saw Gerantor finally striding towards her. The human half of his face was as impassive as the metallic one – there was no sign of pleasure or even satisfaction in his expression. He was a faithful servant driven by what he saw as a grim duty.
	‘Zagreus Kane is not worthy to be our Fabricator General,’ Gerantor proclaimed. ‘In executing this puppet emmissary, we reject his Terran-given authority. We act now for the salvation of the Mech–’
	A las-blast caught him in the head, silencing him. It scorched a trench through the metal of his skull, which sparked and smoked as he wheeled away from Vethorel. More las stitched a crossfire above her, striking the electro-priests and Magos Passax too, pattering from her thick armour plates.
	Vethorel dragged herself forwards. The rest of the adepts were fleeing from the conflict, not even wishing to witness the outcome. She found the strength to rise to her feet. There were other assassins in the crowd, a second wave that now tried to join the first, but found themselves under attack.
	Not from loyal Mechanicum protectors, but the uniformed officers of the Collegia Titanica.
	‘Legio Ignatum, drive them back!’
	There were four princeps, each flanked by two moderati wielding lascarbines. The groups came into the crowd from two different directions, their attacks well ordered and implacable. They fought here as they did when they controlled their Battle Titans – in her delirium, Vethorel fancied she could almost see the spirits of the God-Machines towering over them, phantasmic auras walking to crush a new insurrection.
	In the growing chaos of the struggle on the ramparts, Passax closed with Vethorel again, her voice now a machine snarl. ‘The Mechanicum will be preserved.’
	She seized Vethorel with both of her massive arms, mechadendrites lashing around the ambassador’s neck and chest. Vethorel couldn’t move.
	Vethorel had told Malcador that she and Kane were prepared for the consequences of her actions in the Council. These were the consequences. Her death would only be the first. Passax snapped out a tool-appendage from between her shoulders. Its tip was an adamantine drill. The bit spun before Vethorel’s eyes with murderous intent.
	Plasma blasts struck Passax in her armoured flanks and back. Her voice box let out a sickening electronic squeal. Flames burst from her thorax, and her hands spasmed open.
	Vethorel dropped heavily to the ground while the dying magos slumped in on herself.
	Passax did not fall. Instead, she became a heap of smouldering metal. Smoke enveloped the broken shape, her limbs folded together as if in prayer.
	Vethorel managed to stand, and so she was upright when the princeps reached her. Bassanius and Tevera stood with their plasma pistols ready, close enough to support her if he stumbled, but keeping a respectful distance.
	‘I... I am in your debt,’ she managed. ‘So is Mars.’
	Her soul felt more drained than her body. The adepts of the Mechanicum had drawn each other’s blood again. The priests who lay dead had believed in the righteousness of their actions. Now even the faithful had turned upon each other.
	This had to stop. By the Omnissiah, this had to stop.
	Princeps Tevera helped her forwards. Bassanius of Ignatum looked as sick at heart as Vethorel felt. ‘There is no debt, here,’ he assured her. ‘We did what had to be done.’
	Tevera gave a weak smile. ‘Just as you have of late, ambassador.’
	Vethorel glanced at the bodies littering the Stellarum Vigil, and cursed the brutal costs of her recent decisions. ‘You agree with my proposition, then?’
	‘Yes,’ Bassanius replied. ‘After hearing you plead your case, and after giving it due thought. There are risks for the independence of Mars, true – but if there is no Imperium left to speak of, what then?’
	‘Bring your proposition before the Council again…’ said Tevera, her lungs rasping. ‘It will pass this time. We will ensure… that it does.’
	Vethorel’s voice cracked. ‘Passing it will involve more conflict. More loyal bloodshed.’
	Bassanius exhaled slowly, gravely.
	‘We know. You did not have the leverage you needed at the Council today. Now you will have it.’
	The ambassador shook her head. ‘The High Lords will veto any action they deem to be premature. The Imperium is at war. They have that power.’
	‘They cannot veto the Titan Legions. We have no voice in the Chamber.’
	‘Then you understand how far we might have to go. You understand the lines we may have to cross to secure Mars’ future.’
	Tevera nodded. ‘We do.’
	‘Then that is well.’
	The words were a lie. Nothing was well. Especially not what Vethorel guessed the three of them were about to do.
	All of the gathered princeps were present at the next session of the Council, except for Bassanius, who had other matters to attend. They sat in a long row in one of the lowest tiers with Vethorel, by special arrangement of Fabricator General Kane.
	They watched in silence, as still as if they were standing at attention, while the Council circled laboriously towards the consideration of their fate.
	Predictably, Harr Rantal condemned the battle on the Stellarum Vigil.
	‘While the attempt on Ambassador Vethorel’s life was a despicable and cowardly act, it is apparent that the exiles from Mars have brought their internal conflict with them, inside the walls of the Imperial Palace itself. This is beyond unacceptable.’
	‘Our internal conflict?’ Vethorel responded.
	‘Wasn’t that your civil war being fought last night?’
	‘If you truly think the war is only Martian, then your ignorance is the true danger to Terra.’
	There were murmurs and snickers from the assembled delegates. Even Simion Pentasian smiled wryly as Rantal sank back into his chair.
	‘This is a distraction,’ he announced, cutting without ceremony to what many saw as the true issue. ‘What must be decided is the disposition of the Collegia Titanica forces.’
	Vethorel was defiant. ‘And who will decide that? The honourable High Lords of Terra? By what right, and under what authority? Under the provisions of the Treaty of Olympus, the Titan Legions have never acted under orders from this Council, but voluntarily acceded to its many requests. If the Council of Terra will not give Mars the right to decide its own destiny, how long do you think Terra can stand against the Warmaster without the Mechanicum’s assistance?’
	She gestured to the High Lords.
	‘And how long will you be allowed to behave as if you command the mighty Titans yourselves?’
	‘Your implied threats do your cause no good,’ Rantal spat. ‘Furthermore, they ignore the realities of our situation – Mars has no voice here, because Mars belongs to the traitors!’
	There was uproar in the tiers of the Chamber. Tevera and Vethorel exchanged a weary glance. Pentasian rose from his seat. ‘Once more, we are losing ourselves in recriminations and insults rather than acting for the good of the Imperium. There is one point upon which I will agree with Ambassador Vethorel. The current situation regarding the chain of command is not tenable.’
	Rantal was startled. ‘Surely you don’t seek to endorse the creation of their new Adeptus?’ he asked.
	‘Absolutely not. Given that Mars is currently lost to us, I believe we must all accept the fact that the Treaty signed between Terra and the Mechanicum cannot be held valid. All of its provisions are nullified. We must act to formalise a new accord and a central authority. Yes, the Collegia Titanica needs a clear chain of command – and that chain should begin here, in the Council of Terra.’
	‘No!’ Vethorel cried. ‘You cannot dictate that!’
	She had had enough. She had made one last effort to reason with the Council, but it was pointless. Pentasian and Rantal were lining up to pick over the carcass of the Mechanicum before it was even dead, and the other High Lords were following their lead. She looked to Tevera again, and nodded. It was time.
	Rantal sat up straighter, relishing the meal he imagined was to come.
	‘Ambassador Vethorel,’ he addressed her, ‘as representative of the Mechanicum adepts present on Terra, you will–’
	The doors to the Chamber flew open. His treads grinding against the polished marble floor, Zagreus Kane entered the political arena.
	His arms were folded, their mechanical hands held open. He had come without weapons, as was the law, yet his very being was the embodiment of machinic force. His existence was a threat, and Vethorel saw with even greater clarity why he had chosen not to be part of the deliberations until now.
	His mere presence precipitated crisis.
	The Collegia Titanica representatives stood as one. Vethorel watched the jolt of realisation hit the Chamber, the High Lords at the debating table in particular. They were suddenly aware that there was a concerted military force in the midst of their Council session, unarmed but still intimidating.
	At the head of the table, Malcador the Sigillite clambered painfully to his feet, and planted his staff squarely on the floor. He called out to Kane as his clanking form reached the dais.
	‘Think very carefully about your next actions, Zagreus.’
	‘I am taking none,’ the Fabricator General respondly flatly. He did not mount the platform, but remained where he was, observer and observed. Tevera turned in her exoskeletal frame to address the tiers above them.
	‘I am Warmonger Princeps Tevera of the Legio Agravaides. We have come… to be heard. So hear our voices now, and take heed. If the formation of the Adeptus Mechanicus is not approved in this session… then the Collegia Titanica will know where it stands, and we will no longer be the puppets… of the Council of Terra. To your eternal shame, you have abandoned sacred Mars, home world of my legio. Now you demand that my comrades… forsake their worlds too, to burn undefended beneath the assaults of the traitors. If there is no Adeptus for Mars… there will be no Titans for the Throneworld. We will abandon the Solar War, and return… to our own fiefdoms immediately.’
	The Chamber erupted in roars of outrage and condemnation. Council members and observers alike shouted over each other. The noise washed over Vethorel. She and Kane and the princeps stood in silence, unmoving rocks in the sea of anger.
	You have heard us now, Vethorel thought. But will you listen?
	She guessed not. Harr Rantal leapt to his feet. He did not seem so comfortable in confronting the imposing form of the Fabricator General at the edge of the dais, and so he pointed an accusing finger at Vethorel instead.
	‘This is who you are!’ he practically screamed. ‘This is treachery! A coup! I will see you executed for this!’
	‘This is no coup. It is the resolution of an equation,’ she replied. ‘We understand the necessity of an Adeptus Mechanicus. If you do not, then you must be shown it in terms you can comprehend. The Binary Succession must be ended.’
	Rantal turned to his fellow High Lords. ‘Oh, I tire of this! Let me call in the arbitrators. I will have the Martians arrested, and tried for their crimes against the Throne.’
	The uproar grew louder. Most of the voices cried their approval, but others urged caution, leniency, time to consider all options. They were the ones who saw the line that was about to be crossed: the loyal leader of the Cult Mechanicum and many senior princeps of the Collegia Titanica in chains would be a disaster for Imperial morale across the galaxy.
	At last, Vethorel knew, some of them were beginning to see the danger.
	But not enough, and now it was too late.
	A deep, reverberating impact shook the floor of the chamber, swaying the long lumen-sconces hanging from the dome high above. Vethorel and the Titan officers noted it well, but did not react.
	Another impact, stronger this time. Strong enough to be felt in the shudder of the walls.
	The Council delegates in the upper tiers began to glance around at one another in confusion, even as a further tremor shook masonry dust from the ceiling.
	Then Mars’ greatest voice was heard on Terra.
	The blast of the war-horn cut through the din of the Chamber, and all who heard it fell silent. The sound came from far away, but it rattled the dome all the same. The bellow was deep yet piercing, redolent of the greatest majesty of war. Another tremor followed it a few moments later.
	They were drawing nearer.
	Pentasian’s eyes grew wide. ‘What is happening?’ he spluttered. ‘Ambassador?’
	‘The Imperator Magnificum Incendius of the Legio Ignatum walks towards us.’
	Vethorel’s words were a simple statement of fact. Their implication, though, was enormous. Rantal stared at her in horror. The war-horn sounded again, louder, nearer, and a moment of shocked quiet descended over the Chamber. Thousands were holding their breath at once, listening to the approach of the God-Machine.
	One of the most colossal engines of war ever built walked with ominous purpose towards the political heart of the Imperium. It had stepped over the defences wrought to protect the Master of Mankind as if they were not there, and now strode down the wide avenues of the Outer Palace, driving crowds of fleeing citizens before it.
	Its huge weapon arms cycled up – rotary barrels the length of mag-lev trains, plasma accelerators that could drive a starship. The Titan’s roar was so loud, it seemed as though that alone could bring the Palace tumbling down.
	Emplacement guns were brought awkwardly to bear, having only been intended to fire outwards from the walls. The Custodian Guard and Imperial Auxilia garrisons tried to outflank it, but this was just one single engine of the Collegia Titanica, and there was currently nothing within a hundred kilometres that could halt its relentless advance.
	Panic took hold of the Council Chamber. There were no windows. No one could see what was coming, yet the sound was enough. Everyone present knew of the holocaust that an Imperator Titan could unleash upon its foes.
	Its voice was a howl to shatter the heavens. The end was coming.
	There was no escape, and no recourse.
	Pentasian scrambled towards Vethorel. ‘Stop this! You are commanded to stop!’
	She stood her ground.
	‘Who commands us?’ she asked, timing her words to come between the blasts of the war-horn. ‘Who commands the Mechanicum? Who commands the Titans? The Binary Succession is the product both of poor Martian logic and frightful Terran ignorance, and it may prove the death of us all.’
	The beat of the Titan’s steps were the rhythm of approaching doom.
	Vethorel looked at Malcador. The Sigillite was watching her steadily. His face was shadowed, expressionless. He said nothing. He was letting the situation play itself out. Was he so confident there were lines that the Mechanicum and the Collegia Titanica would not cross, Vethorel wondered? Or had they already been left far behind?
	The ambassador and the princeps had committed themselves irrevocably. The consequences of this day would be unavoidable. She felt the Sigillite judging her – waiting to see if, once and for all, she was prepared for what she had set in motion.
	Or maybe you approve, Vethorel thought. Maybe you want this too.
	The blast of the horn overwhelmed the screams in the Chamber. People were scrambling over each other to reach the exits from the tiers, fleeing what could not be escaped, but the sound froze them in mid-flight. It was so close, it seemed to come from inside the dome, and all around them, all at once.
	In the moment of silence that followed, Vethorel spoke again.
	‘The Binary Succession must be resolved. The Adeptus Mechanicus is the resolution. There can only be zero or one. There cannot be both. Otherwise, there is uncertainty. With uncertainty, can there ever truly be loyalty?’
	She paused.
	‘And if there is no loyalty...?’
	The Titan’s battle cry came one last time. One more step, and it seemed as though Magnificum Incendius would crush the dome beneath its immense, armoured foot.
	Rantal threw up his hands. ‘Enough!’
	He stumbled back to the table, and sank down into his chair.
	‘Enough...’
	The other High Lords, some of them partway towards the Chamber exits, nodded their agreement, looking shrunken and small beside the other men and women of the Council.
	Vethorel nodded to Tevera, who spoke into her vox-bead.
	‘Princeps Bassanius, stand down.’
	Magnificum Incendius halted. The tremors ceased.
	Even so, Pentasian looked up as if he could see the shadow of the Imperator pressing against the exterior walls of the Chamber. His face was ashen. ‘We concur with Ambassador Vethorel,’ he mumbled. ‘There will be an Adeptus Mechanicus, to resolve the… the specific conflicts of succession within the Martian contingent on Terra.’
	Malcador spoke then. His tone was hard, unbowed.
	‘And what does the Mechanicum propose in return? Tell me, ambassador, do you expect the Council to be held hostage indefinitely? The Adeptus Mechanicus will be a voice on the Council, but it cannot be the only voice.’
	‘Agreed,’ Rantal growled. ‘This must never be allowed to happen again.’
	He was not posturing. He had reached his limit. Vethorel could hear his conviction and his determination. If she pushed him any further, his duty as commander of the arbitrators would force him to push back.
	Then the nightmare would truly be unleashed.
	Malcador nodded slowly, rapping his staff on the marble floor of the dais. ‘There will be conditions. If Fabricator General Zagreus Kane is now to ascend to the ranks of the High Lords, he must permit us some concessions as a gesture of good faith. But we will discuss such things only when the officers of the Titan Legions remove themselves from this Chamber.’
	This was the price that had to be paid, now. Kane had to restore trust, and Vethorel’s boldness had ensured that the price of that trust would likely be high indeed.
	Vethorel met with Bassanius and Tevera at the feet of Magnificum Incendius. The Imperator had halted its march barely a hundred yards from the walls of the Great Chamber. It stood in the centre of the two kilometre-wide Avenue of the Imperial Awakening. Its banners flapped in the strong wind, low clouds tore themselves across the peak of its battlements. The God-Machine faced towards the Chamber – a sentinel once more, but a fearsome one.
	The thronging crowd in the avenue gave the Titan a wide berth, while Ignatum protector squads stood guard around the bastion-like entrances to its lower legs. At the same time, the adepts and officials of the Palace slowed and gazed upwards at the engine, mesmerised by the source of their recent terror.
	Bassanius stood with a proprietorial pride before the God-Machine, with Tevera beside him.
	‘Is this what you hoped to achieve, ambassador?’ he asked.
	‘The Adeptus Mechanicus is becoming a reality,’ Vethorel replied. ‘And so is the Adeptus Titanicus. Mars has been promised to us all once more, in exchange for our full-hearted compliance in the defence of Terra, now.’
	‘But the Titan Legions still have no voice of their own,’ Tevera wheezed. ‘We are enthralled… to Zagreus Kane and the alliances he forms for his own purposes.’
	‘No, you will have agency through Zagreus Kane. He honours all of the ancient oaths, the old bonds between the priesthood and the loyal commanders of the God-Machines, and he insists that you be recognised by Terra. This is the oldest alliance, renewed at the Imperium’s greatest time of need and named “Adeptus”.’
	Vethorel gestured to the Great Chamber.
	‘The Council decrees that the legios must act in defence of the Segmentum Solar, and so they shall, but the nature of the deployment will be under the authority of the Fabricator General. In exchange for this service, he will ensure that the lesser forge worlds do not remain undefended – they will be protected and fortified by the Adeptus Mechanicus while the Titans march to war.’
	Bassanius raised an eyebrow. ‘And what of the Treaty of Olympus? Is it dead?’
	‘The Treaty…’
	She stopped, looking off into the direction of the Stellarum Vigil, thinking about the much-needed glimpse of their lost home world that she would have in a few hours’ time.
	‘The Treaty remains in place, though Mars itself does not observe it. I have faith in the Omnissiah, and that we loyal few will take back the Red Planet, when the time is right. For now, though, the home of the Adeptus Mechanicus is on Terra.’
	‘But what does that mean for us?’
	‘It means that the chain of command in the conduct of this war will have a clear order. Neither Mechanicus nor Titanicus can hope to shape the Council’s decisions, then ignore them whenever they choose. The decisions we will help to inform are also the ones by which we must abide. It is not the perfect outcome, but I believe it is the best that could be obtained.’
	The two princeps exchanged a look. Then Tevera turned back to Vethorel. ‘So, this is our victory…’
	‘A victory?’ the ambassador queried. ‘Against whom? There will be no victory until Horus is defeated.’ She thought about what had already been lost, what had already been destroyed. ‘I don’t think the Imperium will ever have a triumphant victory again. Those days are behind us.’
	‘So we gain influence and lose our autonomy,’ Bassanius sighed. ‘And for what?’
	‘The gain is greater than the loss. I do believe this. The Binary Succession is ended. There is only the Adeptus Mechanicus now, not temporary but permanent. There shall only ever be but one Fabricator General, and all loyal children of Mars who would hold true to their faith must follow his command, for the good of all mankind.’
	Vethorel looked up at the Imperator. It had halted only a step or two from catastrophe. Just as on the Stellarum Vigil, she had been one unlucky blow away from death and failure.
	The way forward was narrow and shadowed, but they were all embarked upon it, now.
	There was only one path, and it led through the furnace of war.